Zenith Church, Part One
Part Two | Part Three | Part Four
Author Note the first: Please don’t lecture me on relativity and space travel. It hurts my heart and also my brain so I’m cheating. (I mean, if you have fun science-y facts I will take them, but I will probably not include them in this story.)
Author Note the second: All of the apologies for my clunky and halting attempts at believable slang in dialogue. I did my best. I’m told my writing style is antiquated as it is.
Andrew only started questioning God’s will for his life when he turned over his luggage at the South Andraste Shuttle Port.
More specifically, it was when he mechanically accepted the excess weight fee and caught the employee’s “did this guy really just pay that much of a weight charge?” look that did it. Somehow that one glance drove home just how out of his depth he was about to become.
Three years of doctoral studies? Nothing. Not a blip on the radar. A three-second glance from a baggage attendant? Dear lord, what was he getting himself into?
“I cannot believe you’re bringing a houseplant to Zenith Station.”
Andrew glanced at his younger sister, Lona, standing beside him with her arms crossed and brow cocked toward Andrew’s luggage as it trundled down the belt to the ship’s belly. Despite it being the nearside of dawn, she was tidy and bejeweled as ever. Always ready for the camera. Considering they’d both taken stock of the scant lurkers in the terminal that morning and picked out at least three that looked like they were there for stories rather than travel, Lona’s vanity made sense.
Andrew caught himself tugging at his jacket lapels and forced his hands down. “I can’t just leave it behind,” he told his sister.
“It’ll never survive transit.”
“It has a better chance in that bag for a week than it would have with you.”
Lona gave a delicate snort. “You could have packed an extra pair of shoes instead.” Her dubious eyebrow redirected to the low boots Andrew had sentenced himself to wearing for the foreseeable future.
Andrew struggled not to follow her gaze. The shoes weren’t the worst of it. Clothing in general was going to be a point of contention in Andrew’s immediate future. Even paying the excess weight fees for his luggage, there was still a hard limit on volume, and most of that had to be dedicated to necessities; bedsheets and a decent pillow, which Sister Philomena had advised him in her last message to bring with him, took up nearly a third of that allotment. Given what was left and his refusal to part with his fern, he had been able to pack a grand total of three pairs of pants, one sweater, two dress shirts, and three henleys because, as Lona said, “you in a good henley gets people’s attention”.
Was it vanity to agree with her? It was probably vanity. Andrew swiped a hand down the front of his boring but serviceable jacket. He imagined Cadman, standing several paces back with a shoulder to them, was keeping his distance so as not to be associated with this disgrace who had replaced his brother.
At least Lona hadn’t disowned him yet.
“I’m counting on you to make sure I’m properly dressed,” Andrew said.
Lona gave that arch laugh so many columnists liked to mention in their articles. “I have a feeling you’ll soon be more worried about proper nutrition than shoes.”
“I was thinking more like a visit.”
“Ha!” Lona tossed her head. “Me in a tin can floating above a gas giant way out in the brink? Rolling grav-outs? Bread that comes in a tube?” Her eyebrow rose to crouch behind her blunt red fringe, waiting for Andrew’s imagination to catch up.
And it did. Lona was what some of those interviews called a “rooter”. Their ancestors may have packed up and traveled across the galaxy to new planets, but Lona would never follow in their footsteps. For better or worse, she was tied to the dirt.
So much so that she refused to travel by shuttle unless it was an emergency. There was no way he’d get her off-world and onto an orbital station, even if that station was Eusebeia Station.
Which it wasn’t.
Andrew’s imagination took one step into the world where Lona explored a space station and pivoted, retreating to more manageable terrain before his head started hurting. His father chose that moment to provide a distraction.
“Remember,” Dad said, stepping up beside him and giving his jacket a once-over. “If I get any ransom demands, I won’t be paying them. That’s God’s job now.”
Andrew started to laugh before he realized his father wasn’t smiling. No, he was wearing that stern expression Mom called “the stop and think look”: “Perhaps you should stop and think about acquiring that company.” “Stop and think before you get into that boy’s hover.” “Before you load up into a shuttle that will take you to the ship orbiting our planet, and from there jump through a rip in space to live on a mining station, stop and think about your life choices.”
Though Andrew could possibly be misreading his father’s mood today. Early mornings didn’t agree with Owen Breckon and sometimes his temperament got jarbled.
Lona leaned over on Andrew’s other side, arms still folded. “Fair’s fair, he doesn’t look much like a Breckon.”
Dad grunted.
Between the two of them, Andrew squirmed. “It brings out my humble brown eyes,” he offered.
Now his dad smiled; just a quirk of the mouth at the callback to the family joke, but it eased the tension in Andrew’s chest.
“Only humble thing about you,” Lona quipped.
A warbly chime sounded overhead, followed by a monotone voice: “Now boarding at Gate 12-B, shuttle to jump ship Veda, initial destination: Westfell Junction.”
Andrew felt like he ought to pick up a carry-on, sling it over one shoulder, and sigh, “Well, that’s me.” Instead he heaved a sigh and glanced down the long tiled corridor toward daylight outside. Mom had stayed in the hover with Cadman’s kids, not being one for teary farewells in terminals.
Lona wrapped one of his arms in both of hers and squeezed, tugging him down to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Send us a note when you get there. And pictures.”
“How about—“ But a lump in his throat forestalled Andrew’s joke. He swallowed thickly. “Yeah.” He accepted his father’s mute, crushing hug without resistance. Over Dad’s shoulder, he caught Cadman’s eye. His older brother lifted one hand from his folded arms to wave. The dip of Cadman’s chin said enough.
Beyond Cadman, the notable by-passer who had failed to pass by tapped something on the screen on her wrist.
Thankfully Andrew wouldn’t get the headlines for a few days. In fact, he could avoid it altogether now if he wanted to. Get news of his family the old fashioned way, maybe, instead of through the society columns Mom liked to read aloud at breakfast in her phone voice.
Squaring his shoulders, Andrew turned for the gate.
“Hey!” Lona shouted.
Andrew glanced back to find her glaring at him. He lifted an arm in question.
“I said I love you, you fritz-brain.”
Dad threw Lona a warning look.
Andrew grinned. “I love you, too.” He nodded to include Dad and Cadman in this.
Then he stepped through the gate toward the shuttle, joining the thin stream of passengers. Most of them looked haggard and tousled: probably commuters heading to their next construction assignments, or sailors on brief shore leave. Andraste’s main ground port didn’t service any of the lines he could have taken to get to Zenith Station. The secondary port, in Romulus, handled traffic destined for the brink.
The “frontier”, as the dreamers liked to call it.
Sinking into a random seat, Andrew bowed his head.
No one cares about you, he reminded himself. No one has any idea who you are. No one has to. You’re just another guy heading to the brink for a job.
Yeah, a job. Two, actually, if he wanted to eat without living on an allowance from his father and the board. Oh, no. He was going to have to cook his own meals. This was going to be a disaster.
“If you’re going to be sick, there’s a bag by your knee,” a voice next to him helpfully remarked.
Andrew raised his head and smiled weakly at his neighbor. He thought the man might be a miner or other deep-space laborer.
“No, sorry.” Andrew dragged the heel of his hand down his pant leg. “First time.”
The man’s chin lifted. “What, were you praying?”
“I hadn’t gotten that far yet.”
The man’s chin rose a fraction. He gave Andrew a closer look, taking in the tailored jacket, the spotless boots, and the uncalloused hands.
Andrew imagined he could see “lander” scrolling across the man’s brain in giant flashing neon letters.
“Traveling for pleasure?” There was a distinct note of irony in the man’s voice.
“No, a job. On Zenith.” See, look? He even omitted the “station” part. That’s what people on stations did. No one called it “Andraste planet”.
His neighbor’s attention was drifting. Andrew thought about dragging it back; he should return the man’s favor and ask what brought him to this shuttle today. He could make small talk. He was a master of small talk.
“I’m going to be the new pastor there.”
Ok, so he was bad at small talk.
But it got the miner’s attention. “Pastor?” he repeated with something akin to a laugh. “They sent all the way to Andraste for a pastor? Didn’t know Zenith even had a church.”
Aha! There was the in he needed. “You’ve been to Zenith?”
“Yeah, I got family there.”
The man, whose name Andrew soon learned was Marcus, settled in to talk about his family and what he knew of Zenith, and then of other places he’d visited. Andrew had guessed wrong in Marcus’s profession; he was an electrician who contracted on various haulers and cruisers. On occasion he took a contract on a jump gate.
By the time they’d made orbit, Andrew had learned that Marcus’s extensive experience extended to talking landers through flight sickness. Turned out Andrew did need that bag next to his knee.
And the one next to Marcus’s.
And another handed back from the old woman in front of them.
After his stomach stopped protesting its unnatural departure from planetary gravity, Andrew was praying in earnest.
God, I just want to survive this trip. Tell me you didn’t enlist me for a pastorate in the brink just to kill me on the trip.
#
Andrew did not die on the trip. Transferring from the shuttle to the ship was an experience that would fuel his nightmares for years to come (was it really necessary to provide that many warnings and announcements before disembarking?) but he made it to his bunk with only a few scars. He spent the first three days in a feverish state of vertigo, but once the space-sickness had passed he found he didn’t actually mind space travel.
He almost didn’t notice when they slipped through the jump gate. Almost.
At Westfell Junction he said goodbye to Marcus, hauled his luggage to his gate, and shuttled to a battered gray hauler called The Lotus, which would take him and a token number of other passengers the rest of the way to Zenith Station.
His headache didn’t let up the whole time. It was more a relief than anything when an announcement woke him out of a doze in his bunk:
“Attention passengers,” a female voice called. “We are beginning our final approach to Zenith Station. For those who are disembarking, please collect your belongings and make your way to your assigned shuttle. Shuttles will be departing at 14:30 shipboard time. Traffic was minimal so we’re actually ahead of schedule.”
A pause followed, heavy with the sense that something—maybe laughter—was meant to fill it.
The speaker cleared her throat. “That...that was a joke.”
Several voices jeered in the background. The announcer continued, speaking over them. “Anyway, we’re ahead of schedule. Station time is roughly oh-seven-thirty. Remember: don’t eat the tacos.”
With a click, the announcement ended. Andrew dragged himself out of his bunk and collected his things for one last shuttle trip. After this he was going to sleep for a week.
Well, after the shuttle trip and once he found the gumption to actually disembark.
The rest of the passengers were long gone, and there he sat in his seat on the shuttle, listening to station life bustle about right outside the door.
The station where he was going to live. As a pastor. His own church, his own congregation. Work. An apartment—or did they call it a cabin? Bread in a tube and vitamins to keep weak bones and heart conditions at bay.
All waiting outside.
Come on, you coward. One foot and then the next. The door’s not that far. Your new home is not that far.
A friendly robotic voice informed him that the doors would be closing soon. Snatching up his carry-on, Andrew launched himself down the aisle...
...and cannoned directly into someone on the step outside.
The pair of them tumbled to the dirty metal floor in a heap. Apologies spilled out of Andrew’s mouth before he’d even righted himself.
“I am so sorry,” he said for about the sixth time as he held out a hand.
The young woman he’d toppled hopped to her feet without his help. She tucked in her lips to hold back a grin...and possibly a laugh. Brushing a hand down her overalls, which did nothing at all against the caked-on grime, she cleared her throat.
“I’ve had worse,” she said, and bent to scoop up his carry-on. She tossed it to him.
Andrew grunted and barely caught it. She had definitely chucked it with more force than necessary. “Thanks,” he said.
The girl wiped her hands and gave him a once over. “First time on a station?”
Adjusting his hold on his bag, Andrew squinted one eye in thought. “You would be the...eighth person to ask me that. I’m starting to think I should get it tattooed on my face.”
“No need. Your boots tell a story all their own.”
He followed her gaze to his boots. Though a little scuffed and battered now, they were conspicuously clean and new. “Judas,” he muttered at them.
His eyes moved to the woman’s own shoes: sturdy work boots with thick soles and tight laces, all stained with substances he didn’t even want to guess at. (What turned leather white?)
“Well, I guess I get to welcome you to Zenith. I’m Nikki.” The girl stuck out a hand. When Andrew took it, she gave it a crushing shake.
“Andrew,” he offered.
An alert from the shuttle warned them to stand clear. Still holding his hand hostage, Nikki dragged Andrew toward one wall of the massive shuttle bay.
“So, Andrew,” she shouted over a sudden roar of engines, “what brings a guy like you to Zenith?”
He had this one down by now, to the point where he found himself reciting it in his dreams: I’m the new pastor for the church on-station. Yes, there’s a church on Zenith Station. That’s right, Fabrice Libera was the pastor before he died. Haha, yeah, sending for a new pastor is so much like ordering a new motor/pair of boots/goat/husband. No, I don’t really have a concrete opinion on the ramifications of humanity leaving the original Earth but I don’t think it means we’ll all miss out on the Rapture.
“Church,” he said with all the eloquence of his grandfather’s second generation buttlebot.
Nikki’s eyebrows rose, putting him in mind of Lona. “You know, I think there’s a very nice church on Quintas. It’s probably closer to wherever you’re from.”
“No, sorry.” Shuffling his bag again, he raised his voice over a new, more insistent alarm. “I’m the new pastor.”
Nikki shook her head to show she couldn’t hear him. Before he could try again, a bay worker in a safety vest appeared to shuffle them through a series of doors into a corridor.
“Ratfink,” Andrew hissed. “I didn’t grab the rest of my luggage.”
“Oh, that’s fine. It’ll have been off-loaded.” Nikki motioned down the corridor. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
She set off at a brisk pace. Her hair, pulled back into a long black ponytail, swung like a pendulum and whipped at innocent bystanders.
Andrew trotted to keep up.
“Sorry, I couldn’t hear you back there,” Nikki called over her shoulder. “You said you’re here because…?”
Andrew tore his eyes from an information screen on a passing monitor. “I’m the new pastor. To replace Pastor Libera.”
“Oh!” Nikki drew up.
Andrew skidded to a stop beside her, his boots scrabbling for purchase on the smooth floor.
“I didn’t know they had a new pastor,” Nikki said. She set her head to one side.
Andrew had thought her eyes were brown, but in the stark light of the corridor he realized they were greenish.
Nikki shoved her hands into the pockets of her overalls. “What, did they order you out of a catalogue?”
“I’m sorry?”
She swept a hand up and down to take in his appearance. Andrew became keenly aware of the fact that he hadn’t shaved in days.
“I don’t….” He shook his head.
“You know, never mind. We need to get your luggage. Come on.”
And she started off again, with Andrew racing to keep pace.
Between his various short conversations with people who had been to or lived on Zenith Station, Andrew had harbored a growing fear that all of the information packets he’d studied were missing vital information. This suspicion continued to be confirmed as they wove through the corridors, passing signs about various emergency procedures and windows looking out into little parks under artificial sunlight. They passed a dog walking at heel with an old man with a prosthetic leg.
What happened to Zenith being a technological backwater riddled with poverty and disease?
Upon reflection, he should have easily spotted several issues with that preconceived notion. Never say that out loud.
“I’m surprised they didn’t assign you a guide,” Nikki was saying as they rounded another corridor. Streams of words racing alongside them in the walls suggested they were nearing their destination.
“A guide?”
“Y’know. To walk you through orientation. Make sure you find your housing assignment. Also.” She glanced back at him, her brow wrinkling. “How do you feel about manual labor?”
Whatever Andrew’s face did seemed answer enough. Her lips twisted before she turned away again.
“Thought so,” she said. “Well, get used to it. You’ll probably get put on the rotating agri detail if your housing is hosted by the church.”
There were so many questions running through Andrew’s brain he didn’t know which to lead with. He let one loose at random. “Hosted?”
Nikki continued to charge ahead. Andrew dodged a wheelchair and a bot pushing a hover-cart loaded with crates.
“Hosted?” he tried again.
“Yeah, you know. The church hosts a housing sector.”
That helped exactly not at all. “And the work detail?”
“It’ll be part of your tenant contract. All full-time residents contribute to station upkeep. Unskilled laborers are a piece commodity.”
Seeing Andrew’s look, Nikki laughed. “It’s not slave labor. You work, you get a discount on your rent. And you get cafeteria access, for whatever that’s worth. Plus, anyone who works agri gets a crop share. It all evens out.” She shrugged. “It’s not like they press-gang people to work. We may be out on the brink, but we still have labor laws.”
They pulled up in front of a huge doorway with “Welcome Center / Visitor Information” on the front. Someone had come through with fluorescent paint, crossed out the original name, and sprayed “Quarantine” beneath it in elegant, glowing orange.
Nikki slapped at the button to open the door. “Your stuff should be through to the right. Don’t cover your mouth, it’s a joke.”
Behind them, a very tall man with a beard so full it looked like someone had stuck a cat to his face let out a booming laugh.
Andrew lowered his hand. “But it’s not funny.” He took several large steps through the door to distance himself from the man with the beard. Nikki dragged him left.
“You said it was right.”
“I was wrong. Here.” She guided him out of the way of foot- and cart-traffic and pointed to a glass-walled room. “Shuttle supplies are off-loaded there. You should have the details on your pad.” She grabbed his wrist, gave it a wrenching twist to bring up the light screen, and tapped something into it. “And now you’ve been assigned an orientation partner. You’re welcome.”
Andrew reclaimed his arm and rubbed at it. “Thank you.”
Nikki lifted on shoulder, her mouth bunching to one side. “Sure thing. Don’t get lost.” She looked from him to the shuttle storage area and back. “Actually, maybe I’ll kick around with you until that partner arrives. They take their time and you might get trampled.”
She had been staring at him, but suddenly drew back, her eyes widening. “Something just happened to your face.”
Andrew swiped a hand across his cheek. “My face?”
“Yeah.” Nikki twisted her own face into what Andrew assumed was meant to mimic whatever his face had just done.
He recognized a passing imitation of his father’s “stop and think look”.
“Oh. Yeah…. I think that was about me getting trampled. I do know how to stand out of the way.”
Nikki gave a little hum-like laugh but didn’t reply. She jerked her head toward the shuttle storage room. “Let’s go, preacher man.”